National Lampoon’s Animal House

The impact that National Lampoon Magazine had on American comedy during the 1970s was enormous, eventually spawning the massively ripped-off comedy movie National Lampoon's Animal House (as well as the Vacation series and some crappy forgettable flicks). You could say that the long running sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live symbolically evolved from National Lampoon (as well as from the Second City comedy clubs in Chicago and Toronto). Following the success of SNL's first breakout star, Chevy Chase, John Belushi would earn a cult following from his performance in Animal House that would last past his untimely death four years later from a drug overdose, leading the way for SNL alumni to dominate comedy for decades.Animal House follows two freshmen, Pinto (Tom Hulce) and Kent (Stephen Furst), "a wimp and a blimp," at Faber College in 1962. After being turned away from the elite fraternities they end up joining "the worst house on campus," Delta House. These campus outlaws are in constant trouble with Dean Wormer (brilliantly played by the snaky John Vernon of Point Blank), as they are placed on “double secret probation.” Eschewing academics or athletics, Delta members are either out to get wasted or laid, lead by would-be playboy, Otter (Tim Matheson), and super slob, Bluto (Belushi). There are a number of memorable scenes including Pinto and fellow Delta, Boon (Peter Riegert), along with his girlfriend, Katy (Karen Allen), being introduced to pot by a professor (Donald Sutherland); Belushi's stroll through the cafeteria line hoarding food and then his zit imitation; the guys' trip to a Rhythm N Blues club where Otis Day and the Knights perform (a scene ripped off in Weird Science). After the fraternity is expelled their revenge on the s...

Private School

This is the perfect example of a movie that was made, almost exclusively, for a teenage male audience in the '80s. So as a woman there was really very little to help me empathize with the characters, even during the forced moments that are supposed to be either romantic or tender. However, something about its shameless voyeurism and the sensational amounts of uncalled for nudity make this movie special when compared to other '80s comedies like Animal House and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which are more popular and deserve to be. Two Fast Times stars are in the film, including the ever-radiant Phoebe Cates and Ray Walston, who played Mr. Hand and stars, for too brief of time, as a limo driver in this movie. It is also Kathleen Wilhoite's film debut, and a favorite of mine in terms of the characters she's played thus far. The point I'm trying to make is that this movie's success as a comedy is not in delivery, or being able to laugh at something that has happened to you. On the contrary, the funniest part about the movie is its raunchy depiction of private school girls, teenage boys, and all the supposedly sex-deprived adults who surround them. Point being, you shouldn’t watch this movie to have some '80s flashback or be able to say, "…Yeah, something like that happened to me in high school." You should watch it because of its unrealistic chain of events and lack of substance.

It's senior year for all the girls at Cherryvale Academy, a posh all-girls boarding school in some forgettable city. Chris (Phoebe Cates) and her best friend Betsy (Kathleen Wilhoite) are both trying to lose their virginity to their boyfriends, who are also pals and attend the neighboring all-boys academy. Chris's boyfriend, Jim (Matthew Modine), is extremely handsome and sweet, while Betsy's boyfriend, Bubba (Michael Zorek), fits his name perfectly as the profusely sweaty fat kid who's the biggest pervert in his class. A reccurring source of comedy has to do with Bubba trying to avoid the deed and convincing Betsy that they've already done it, she just doesn’t remember on account of being drunk. Meanwhile, Chris and Jim have made plans to book a hotel for a weekend in order to show some class and spark romance for their first time. The only problem is that Chris's rival, Jordan (Betsy Russell), also has the hots for Jim and will do anything to get his attention. As the openly catty Jordan starts to pursue Jim, Chris and Betsy retaliate by trying to be one step ahead of her. The boys from the other school try desperately to infiltrate the girls' academy in order to either get a peak at all the naked chicks walking around the dormitory or see their girlfriends. This includes dressing in drag and scaling the wall on each other's shoulders, with Bubba on the top of their pathetic pyramid. Their trespassing complicates matters for Chris and Jim because it brings Jim one step closer to the devious Jordan.

Topaz

Easily the most underrated film of the great Alfred Hitchcock’s massive career, Topaz is a perfectly constructed little cold-war thriller with many cool little filmmaking flourishes. It’s truly a wonder why this film has not been rediscovered by Hitchcockian enthusiasts and given its proper due. As a follow-up to his other cold war thriller in the '60s, the Paul Newman dud Torn Curtain, perhaps audiences were just weary of the subject matter. Perhaps because it had no stars it wasn’t taken seriously. Or maybe by the late '60s audience tastes had changed and by then the Grand Master was considered "old hat." Of course he would follow it with another often over-looked gem, Frenzy, which was his chance to finally go balls-to-the-wall with the sex and violence (and no stars). Like Billy Wilder’s cold-war comedy One Two Three, another lost gem, both films were financial flops, but both are actually great examples of what the two directors do best. In Wilder’s case, of course, it’s cynicism (though One Two Three was more slapstick than his usual cool) and with Topaz, Hitchcock again demonstrated how to create suspense with just camera pans and small pieces of information.

Based on a novel by Leon Uris (Exodus) with a script by Samuel A. Taylor (Vertigo), Topaz jerks around in different directions and, at 143 minutes, is Hitchcock’s longest film. It opens in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1962 (pre-Cuban Missile Crisis), with a Soviet military bigwig, Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius, a Swedish actor who in real life died setting himself on fire as a tax protest), his wife and teenage daughter sightseeing and are being followed by their KGB handlers. Aided by an American spy, Michael Nordstrom (played by John Forsythe who would become a big star on TV’s Dynasty), they make a daring escape, defecting and getting shipped out to Washington, DC. While debriefed the Americans learn of a pact between the Soviets and Cuba. Nordstrom hooks up with his French counterpoint, André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), who is vacationing with his wife Nicole (Dany Robin), daughter and her UN reporter husband (Michel Subor) in New York. Here the film totally shifts and becomes Devereaux’s. A classically suave spy, he seems to be cozy with the Soviets but is still willing to help the Americans, even when his wife objects. In a great scene, Devereaux enlists the help of an undercover French florist, Philippe Dubois (Roscoe Lee Browne), to steal some incriminating papers from a visiting Cuban delegate, Rico Parra (John Vernon, Dean Wormer of National Lampoon’s Animal House, here doing his best Che). In an effort to find out what’s really going on Devereaux jets off to Cuba where his beautiful mistress (Karin Dor, a Bond Girl in You Only Live Twice) also happens to the widow of a Cuban Revolutionary hero and secret leader of the anti-Castro forces. The two work to get evidence of Russian missiles and for a while the film becomes an escape from Cuba adventure.